Sunday, August 19, 2012

Continuing from the previous post, showing the Pacific portion of CP Air's October 1978 route network. Vancouver dominates as the airline's home base, with strong showings a the prairie capitals of Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. All four western Canadian cities are connected to Honolulu, which is merely a way station for further stops at the international airport at Nadi (here spelled Nandi) in Fiji, finally finishing at Sydney. A single Asian route links Vancouver to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Routes out of Vancouver also link California, and further down the Pacific coast to Acapulco and Lima, as shown in the earlier post. An extensive domestic network across Northwestern Canada extends as far as Whitehorse.

The incredibly complex connectivity of the classic Canadian Pacific Air Lines route network in October 1978 is shown here in this blazoning vintage advert. Then operating as CP Air, the aviation arm of the Canadian conglomerate offered passenger services to 14 international airports on five continents from no less than five separate gateways across Canada.

Particularly key was the European gateway of Amsterdam, which lined to four Canadian cities: Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, although somewhat oddly not its primary airport, Vancouver. CP Air jets also departed Toronto for Milan, and Rome, with onward service to Athens from both Rome and Amsterdam. Rome and Lisbon, but not Amsterdam, were served from Montreal, which also enjoyed service to Mexico City. Toronto was also linked to Mexico City as well as Acapulco and Lima. Whether the continuing service from Lima to Santiago, finally terminating at Buenos Aires, were originally from Toronto or Vancouver is unclear.

CP Air also connected all its international gateways, except Montreal, to Honolulu, from whence it plunged far south to Antipodea. CP Air's Pacific operations, shown above, will be detailed in the following post.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Like its rival Japan Air Lines, All Nippon Airways, the first customer for the B787 Dreamliner, has been rapidly deploying the plane on new routes made suddenly-viable with the new aircraft's advanced capabilities and economics. One of these is to Seattle-Tacoma, although the special note indicate that the route will commence with a B777, prior to the delivery of a B787 model.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Continuing from the previous post, this detail of Delta's January 2012 route map shows the airline's numerous routes spreading out of its Tokyo Narita hub to Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Taipei, Busan, Seoul, Shanghai, Manila, the latter also served from Nagoya, whereas the Micronesian islands of Saipan, Guam and Palau are also served from mainland Japan, including Osaka-Kansai. Numerous routes lead off to the right to the United States, as shown in the previous post. A score of mainland Chinese cities, dotted in blue to indicate connection via SkyTeam parents such as Korean Air, China Eastern, and China Southern, beckons before the curvature of the earth at left.

A map from the beginning of the year showing Delta's crisscrossing of the north Pacific. The remnants of Northwest Airlines half-century of service across the rim of the Pacific is clearly evident with Tokyo as a through-put hub, and Detroit, acting successfully if somewhat curiously as the primary Asian gateway of the long-haul system, as well as also keeping Minneapolis connected to Narita. Added to this are Delta's old standby, Atlanta, and its upstart hub at Salt Lake City (the first time Utah's capital has been mentioned on Timetablist).

Non-hubs Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco enjoy non-stops to Tokyo, and Portland, Oregon also continues to be blessed with a prestigious non-stop to Japan. Seattle has actually fared better under Delta than under Northwest: the Department of Transportation awarded a highly-lucrative non-stop to Beijing, the only entry point aside from Detroit, and a Sea-Tac to Kansai connection. Detroit also has the only transocean flight to Hong Kong, whereas Atlanta was granted DOT approval for a non-stop to Shanghai-Pudong (although this route was ultimately unsuccessful and has since been suspended). Lastly are a trio of lucrative connections between Honolulu and mainland Japan, including Osaka and Nagoya.

Note that Delta serves Haneda now also, as many international carriers scrambled to do. Tucked in between the massive Narita operation and the new mainland China gateways is Seoul Incheon, where Delta's SkyTeam partner, Korean Air, has its super hub, although Delta only links to the mainland US via Detroit (Korean Air serves Atlanta). Now that both China Eastern and China Southern are part of SkyTeam, mainland connections may be just as important.

The following post will detail the Asian portion of the map, showing connections from Narita to Southeast Asia.